G Adventures highlights supportive impact of sustainable tourism with digital content collaboration   

Digital content highlighting how sustainable tourism can create a positive impact for travellers and destinations has been produced by G Adventures and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC).

 

The collaboration includes G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip taking an emotional journey back to the Ecuadorian Amazon to visit an Indigenous family who hosted the operator’s first trips 35 years ago.

 

The documentary is one of two pieces of content created by the company as it enters its 35th anniversary year.

 

More: Travel Redefined: Tourism for People and Planet [External]

 

The ‘Travel Redefined: Tourism for People and Planet’ series will be available across GSTC’s global platforms.

 

The collaboration “represents a strategic alignment of organisations committed to advancing sustainable tourism practices worldwide”. 

 

Poon Tip said: “Community tourism is about including everyone in the tourism supply chain and everyone benefitting as tourism grows in these countries. 

 

“It’s a beautiful thing when you decide to go on holiday and your holiday can be an amazing form of giving back and can transform lives and lift people out of poverty.

 

“You can see it with all of our Indigenous and local community relationships around the world, they celebrate our success and we can celebrate with them. 

 

“That’s a really important part of the benefit of travel, because when our customers come into those countries, when they have the community behind them, the community supporting them, the community welcoming them and the community sharing with them, then everybody rises.” 

 

Addressing a “critical gap” in traditional tourism economics, he added: "We’re going to some of the 40 poorest countries in the world. And in them, there’s a lot of people living below the poverty line and community tourism has the opportunity to bring those people into the tourism economy. 

 

“Depending on the country, there’s many studies that show how much money actually stays in the local economy when somebody travels. 

 

“Anything from $5 out of every $100 stays in the actual economy of that country, which is really sad because we are spending money and we are buying services. 

 

“But when a company’s business model is to drive money out of the country, it’s a missed opportunity and local people aren’t benefitting from you being there.”